Taking on a test that other Republicans have shunned, retired state Sen. Richard Mountjoy said Tuesday that he was entering the race for the GOP nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
A longtime leader of the state Republican Party's conservative wing, Mountjoy had been weighing a Senate run for weeks but said for the first time Tuesday that his decision was "definite."
"I'm in the race," he said in an interview. "No turning back."
The former Monrovia lawmaker described his candidacy as an effort to advance the conservative cause in Congress.
Although Democrat Feinstein has been widely seen as moderate since her 1992 election, Mountjoy said she had "totally taken the positions of the left."
The latest evidence, he said, was her Senate Judiciary Committee vote Tuesday against President Bush's nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. All eight committee Democrats voted against Alito, while all 10 Republicans backed him.
With his announcement, Mountjoy becomes the first seasoned Republican to enter the Senate race -- little more than four months before the primary.
The reasons others have stayed out are many: Feinstein is California's most popular elected official, according to polls, and she has raised at least $6.9 million to seek a fourth term. She is well-known to most voters, the state has tilted strongly toward Democrats for more than a decade, and the national political climate has soured for Republicans in recent months.
"I bet the house on Feinstein," said Thad Kousser, an assistant political science professor at UC San Diego who cited those factors and others.
Feinstein campaign strategist Kam Kuwata said Mountjoy had long positioned himself as a politician "to the right of the right wing of the Republican Party."
"Dianne Feinstein is in the mainstream, and has always been in the mainstream, and calls them as she sees them on the merits of each case," Kuwata said.
Mountjoy's preparations for the Senate race have set off jitters among some Republican strategists who fear that his conservative stands on abortion, immigration and other issues could harm the party's image. In the interview, Mountjoy said he opposed legal abortion, even in cases of incest or rape.
"In the case of incest, there's always adoption," he said. In cases of rape, he added: "I believe that man is a creation of God, and I don't think you kill God's creation."
